The recently announced spending round 2015/6 provided us with a range of decisions that reveal the values and priorities of our Government. I have focused on three small spending areas (their combined budget is half the size of this years overspend by Eric Pickles in his department!).

It has been widely reported that the budget for the Royal family rose based on the proportional increase in the income from the Crown Estates. There is to be a rise from £36.1 million to £37.89 million which represents a 5% increase. In many respects this is not part of the same story as the Chancellor merely accepted an existing policy. However he was the person who established the link to the Crown Estates and he could have taken the line that despite these arrangements it was vital that the Royal Family showed solidarity with other parts of society that are seeing significant cuts. It was revealing to hear the Queens spokesman defending the increase and the argument that this money was to be used to repair and maintain the many properties which the Royal family own on behalf of the nation. This sounds very sensible, as many of us know from our own homes, delaying maintenance can substantially increase the costs. In any case having just spent £1M on refurbishing a new London flat for William and Kate and their new baby, this increase will not go very far! At least the money will help sustain jobs. Perhaps one question that needs to be asked is could this property owning family, at a time when housing demand and homelessness are an inflamed wound on the back of the nation be doing more with their property which the state is seen to be paying to maintain?

One of the departments that has been fortunate enough to retain its existing budget without a cut is The Office for Civil Society whose annual budget will be maintained at £56m. Previously the Office for the Third Sector, the role of this department is to foster and develop relationships with the Voluntary Sector. There are two reasons why this department is crucial to the work of the coalition. The first is David Camerons own focus (or more recently lost interest) on the so called Big Society. If there is to be a strong emphasis on the Big Society, it is the OCS that will give this. The second is that in the light of the ongoing austerity programme, something not anticipated when Dave was pontificating on the idea of a Big Society, it is widely accepted that the Voluntary Sector in all of its forms is picking up many of the pieces that have resulted. Let us hope that despite the freeze to this budget that the OCS can achieve a substantial uplift in engagement. A more strategic approach would have been to use the OCS to deliver a much stronger relationship between the State and misnamed Third Sector.

The final budgetary item for this blog was the decision to reduce the Charity Commission income from £21.4m in 2014/15 to £20.4m or a reduction of 5%, the same percentage change experienced by the Queen. The loss to the charity commission is on top of previous cuts, just as the Queen has seen rises previously. This cut raises a number of concerns. Coming on the heels of the problems with the Cup Trust and one or two other abuses of  charitable legislation, this suggests that the Government is not serious about regulating the areas where the sector has failed to deliver, cynically one might wonder if a few too many Conservative supporters are involved in the abuse of these rules? This is of great concern to legitimate charities that are in danger of being damaged reputationally by Cup and others. A second concern that this cut presents is that much of the previous work of the Charity Commission to support and strengthen the wider voluntary sector is already being pressed onto the so called infrastructure charities. They are expected to recover the costs for this work from the charities they serve. Most of these charities and infrastructure organisations are funded primarily from you and I and to a lesser extent from local Government. A small number of charities do receive funding from central Government. At a time when charities are being expected to do a great deal more, with fast diminishing resources, this pressure from the Government shows how little George and Dave understand the Society that they used to call Big, but perhaps they see in the work of the Royal Family something a bit easier for them to relate to.